Craig MacTavish has been busy in free agency, substantially altering the makeup of his team. It's a sign of where he started from that there's still substantial work to do to improve the Oilers' roster.

Forward Depth Chart

The chart above is my interpretation of the current Oilers' North American roster. I have included only players with an NHL component to their deal, and omitted players expected to be overseas. How does it look?

One thing that comes to mind is that there should be no shortage of competition for depth roles, something the team lacked a year ago. Anton Lander is pencilled in as fourth line centre, but players like Andrew Miller, Mark Arcobello and Will Acton will all be in the mix. Ryan Hamilton, Toni Rajala and Ben Eager should all also compete for playing time as things currently stand. Depth, particularly on the wings, is better than it was a year ago.

Additionally, in Boyd Gordon, Craig MacTavish located the best UFA replacement available for Shawn Horcoff.

But it isn't good enough. The top line is fine - it was fine last year, and it's fine now. Magnus Paajarvi is a stretch as a second-line winger at this point in his career, particularly on a line featuring Nail Yakupov, whose overall game is still rounding into NHL form. Jesse Joensuu, an occasional New York Islander in the past, is a long way from a sure thing on the third line. There's likely still an Ales Hemsky trade coming, at which point the team needs someone to fill his spot - Ryan Jones can in a pinch, but asking Jones to play that role for 82 games is asking for trouble. Anton Lander's riding an end-of-season hot streak but likely should start 2013-14 in the minors.

Ideally, the team should add three more bodies to the mix:

Second-line left wing - a guy who in a perfect world adds size, aggressiveness, and a two-way game is going to be difficult to find and almost certainly needs to come via trade. My guess is that the Oilers can probably land a player with two out of three for not too much - as examples, R.J. Umberger would add a responsible two-way presence and a 6'2", 220 pound frame while a winger like Ryan Malone (if willing to accept a trade West) would bring all three but comes with a significant injury tag. Finding a perfect fit will be very hard to do, especially without paying a fortune.

Third-line right wing shouldn't be too hard to acquire - he's likely the player that comes back when Hemsky gets shipped out of town. This is another position that probably needs to be filled via trade, as the UFA crop is thin on players who can kill penalties and handle a ton of defensive responsibility in this role.

Fourth-line centre is a spot the team should be able to fill. Players like David Steckel, Tim Brent, and Manny Malhotra are still unsigned, and would significantly shore up the Oilers depth, allowing them to continue developing Lander in the AHL for the beginning of 2013-14.

Defensive Depth Chart

As before, my interpretation of where the Oilers are, this time on the blue line and in net. Players with an asterisk are left-shooting defencement slotted in at the right-hand side for the purposes of this exercise.

Goaltending is relatively solid. Dubnyk is a respectable number one, LaBarbera a cheap and effective backup, and Bachman a number three with relatively extensive NHL experience. LaBarbera is seen as a pure backup in some quarters, but that likely isn't totally fair - Ilya Bryzgalov and Mike Smith have been fairly difficult to supplant in recent years, and LaBarbera's NHL numbers over that span indicate a guy who could play more without hurting his team. He is a real option should Dubnyk struggle or get hurt.

Defensively, depth is good, particularly on the left side. A quick note about Lee Moffie - he isn't signed, but given that the Oilers traded for him it's a reasonable expectation that he will be. There are eight defenders on my NHL roster at the moment, but I fully expect Edmonton to go with fourteen forwards and seven defenders - it's a reasonable bet that the acquisition of Philip Larsen makes Corey Potter the odd man out. The AHL team should be bursting at the seams with recall options - Fedun (and possibly Potter, should he clear waivers and be assigned to Oklahoma) on the right side, Klefbom and Marincin for sure on the left. The problem is the top pairing: Petry and Smid struggled in the role last season. That means the Oilers have one slot to fill.

I have subtracted Nick Schultz from this equation, but Ladislav Smid is a player with significant trade value and could be out instead if the Oilers add a top-pairing player. Also worth noting: that player does not necessarily need to be a left-side defenceman - I have it set up that way because the pairing of Ference (or Nick Schultz) and Philip Larsen is one I would be more comfortable with than an Anton Belov/Justin Schultz pairing.

My guess is that this is why the Oilers were looking at Braydon Coburn. If they believe that Coburn is a similar player to Smid in many areas (especially as a physical presence in front of the net) but an upgrade in his ability to move the puck, than a Coburn/Petry top pairing makes some sense. That would leave Smid (or Andrew Ference) on a pairing with Justin Schultz, and Andrew Ference (or Nick Schultz) on third pairing duty with Philip Larsen. It still wouldn't be an ideal defence core because of the lack of a clear number one defenceman, but as a by-committee approach it really isn't bad.

The big, physical winger position is the one that has received most of the attention; the need for a new top-pairing defender might be the team's greatest actual weakness, as currently constructed.

Recently around the Nation Network

It appears the Flames are finished window shopping for UFA's. Word is the club hasn't even bothered contacting Mason Raymond and probably the only other worthwhile player on the market given Calgary's needs is Mikhail Grabovski. Naturally, there hasn't been even a whisper that Calgary has any interest at all. So, absent any left field trades, what you see is likely what you get when it comes to the roster.

Click the link to read more, or alternately, feel free check out some of my other pieces here:

Jonathan Willis is a freelance writer.
He currently works for Oilers Nation, Sportsnet, the Edmonton Journal and Bleacher Report.
He's co-written three books and worked for myriad websites, including Grantland, ESPN, The Score, and Hockey Prospectus. He was previously the founder and managing editor of Copper & Blue.

I am a Flames fan, so I'm really hoping that the Oilers continue to believe that the key to their success is adding tougher bottom-6 forwards.

Ignore the fact that you have to deploy Jeff Petry as a first pairing defenceman. Focus instead on getting rid of Ales Hemsky so you can replace him with a 30 point grinder.

I am a bit saddened that the goaltending situation seems to be turning around in Edmonton, because Dubnyk looks like a good-enough #1 option and Lebarbra is a very good #2 option.

But the Oilers have a defence that is every bit as bad as the Flames, a forward group that is undersized, underaged, and even with Gordon they are not exactly world-beaters on the defensive side of the puck. I think you guys will be neck-and-neck with your miserable cousins down south for the upcoming season.

Season ticket holders are the solution , not the problem . Cudos to those that hold them , for without them we might not still have NHL hockey here . Katz is probably just as disappointed as you with the results his team has . Pressuring Katz might or might not help . Much to i'm sure every ones disappointment, Katz has failed to deliver thru his managerial team a winner as yet . Maybe a new managerial would meet with better preferred results , then again it may not and set us back even further and more prolonged poor results .

Make no mistake about it , season ticket holders support is still the ultimate solution /the glue that holds our chances in place .

I am a Flames fan, so I'm really hoping that the Oilers continue to believe that the key to their success is adding tougher bottom-6 forwards.

Ignore the fact that you have to deploy Jeff Petry as a first pairing defenceman. Focus instead on getting rid of Ales Hemsky so you can replace him with a 30 point grinder.

I am a bit saddened that the goaltending situation seems to be turning around in Edmonton, because Dubnyk looks like a good-enough #1 option and Lebarbra is a very good #2 option.

But the Oilers have a defence that is every bit as bad as the Flames, a forward group that is undersized, underaged, and even with Gordon they are not exactly world-beaters on the defensive side of the puck. I think you guys will be neck-and-neck with your miserable cousins down south for the upcoming season.

I think the term you are looking for is 'tougher to play against' bottom six forwards. And yes, the Oilers do need to address that. What they don't need is a bunch of goons.

The Oilers won't likely have a #1 defenseman, per se. They will be a 'by-committee' style defense and will share minutes. There will be some mismatches on occasion and it will cost the Oilers, but overall the defense looks to be an improvement from last year's disaster. The Flames will lean on Gio and Brodie for 5v5 minutes and Wideman will get his PP points. Their defensive depth is very thin and the Flames don't have a Klefbom or Nurse coming.

I agree with your assessment of the Oilers goaltending. The Flames goaltending situation is much more uncertain. MacDonald has never played an entire NHL season before but is a serviceable backup. Karri Ramo has been good in the KHL, but his previous NHL experience was a disaster (sub .900 SV%). Big question marks there.

When you look at the changes that have been made to the Oilers this summer (player changes, Dallas Eakins, new captain), I think that alone will increase the team's standings position by two positions. The x-factor will be: How much better are Hall, RNH, Yakupov, Eberle, and Schultz going to be this season? If it is mild improvement, then the Oilers will finish in 20th overall. If the improvement is drastic, then they will finish in 12-16th place and make the playoffs.

Defence by committee can be done. LA does it, for example. But your committee includes your big-minute centers, and guys like Mike Richards, Anze Kopitar, and Jarret Stoll as a group are on a different level from The Nooj, Sam Gagner, and Boyd Gordon.

I think the Oilers' TOP 6 is the group that needs to get tougher to play against (as well as tougher in general), and MacT's "we want Lucic" gaffe suggests that he agrees at least in part.

I agree with your assessment of the Flames defence, with the one caveat that pretty much every centre in the organization (ie Stajan, Backlund, Monaghan, Knight, Jankowski, Bouma, Arnold, etc) are all guys that are very good defensively. There is something to be said for having every centre on the team as a safe PK option.

Ramo's poor numbers in the NHL were from many years ago, when he was a teenager on the worst team in the NHL. He is a big gamble, but I don't think his stats from back then are any indicator one way or another about how he will perform this time around.

The Flames looked worse than they were for most of last season because Kipper was flat-out awful. IF Ramo can put up a solid performance I see the Flames back in a similar position next year, at 20-25th overall (worse team but with better goaltending). If not, 28th sounds right.

The Oilers on the other hand didn't seem to have any major outlier causing their woes. Their defence was as bad as it looked on paper, their young scoring forwards tried to play river hockey, and their goaltending was good but not amazing. None of these fundamentals have changed. Yes, if all or most of their key players have great years at the same time they will make the playoffs, but that is true of every team in the NHL.

With the lack of high end defenders on the roster I don't see how people can keep subtracting Nick Schultz while leaving Justin in the second pairing.

Frankly, I think the Oilers are going to need 5 top four defenders to have a decent group this season. 4 decent top 4 guys to give them an average top 4, and a guy capable of playing top 4 to baby sit Justin on the third pairing.

Why do the best players want to play in the US? As a true fan of the game, I need to know. The league loses credit with me when Teams like Tampa and San Jose get all the best free agents and former dynasties like Montreal and Edmonton only attract career third and forth line role players. How does Tampa win a cup and then pick no 1 in the draft within two years? no#one forward, over the height of six two has been drafted or willingly signed to a Canadian team for well over a decade. Considering how much Canadian teams suck this is a shocking miracle but probably a conspiracy of finance and American nastiness. The executives know that even unhappy, bored Canadians will still watch stupid television commercials to see their sad teams. What a clever idea! destroy the game that defines Canada and make sure, by whatever means, that the most talented players' lives are waisted by using there talents to market the game to those currently uninterested south of the border. Those boring twins in Vancouver? boring. As an Edmonton fan, I feel sorry for Vancouver fans. I fall asleep whenever they get the puck against Edmonton. Then there is Danny H. Didn't want to sign in Edmonton. What kind of waist of skin wouldn't want to play hockey in the house that the great one and Messier built? No honor among over payed babies. Stay down there with the swamp people Danny because that is where you belong.

Danny Heatley was was a 25 year old multimillionaire who had a limited no trade contract......why would he he choose a piece of crap team lead by Horcoff and Ethan Moreau?!?....when he could go to a contending team??

I never did understand Edmontonians outrage around his choice.....it makes absolutely no sense.

Season ticket holders are the solution , not the problem . Cudos to those that hold them , for without them we might not still have NHL hockey here . Katz is probably just as disappointed as you with the results his team has . Pressuring Katz might or might not help . Much to i'm sure every ones disappointment, Katz has failed to deliver thru his managerial team a winner as yet . Maybe a new managerial would meet with better preferred results , then again it may not and set us back even further and more prolonged poor results .

Make no mistake about it , season ticket holders support is still the ultimate solution /the glue that holds our chances in place .

Kaztz is NOT disappointed, after his uber-stadium is built then that's when disappointed turns to anger.

I really like Smid, but you're seriously using his PKGA as an argument?

Do you realize how small a number that is over a 48-game schedule? One more goal or one fewer goal would have resulted in a massive 0.4 goals/60 swing. It's a ridiculous number to use because it is so very variable with just a tiny change in actual results.

I really enjoy your articles JW.....and I think statistical analysis has great value in assessing players strengths and weaknesses......but it has its limitations/drawbacks....one being that you can find a statistic to back up almost any opinion.....

Not entirely sure what this means, but a bottom six with Raymond/Gordon/Paajarvi and Joensuu/Gomez/Jones with Smyth and Brown in the pressbox is a vast improvement over anything we iced last year. A little bit of size, a little bit of physicality, but most of all players who won't get absolutely owned when they are on the ice and can actually play a little defense and move the puck in the right direction.

To me, that's a pretty big thing. We had "physical" guys last year in Eager, Hordichuk, Petrell, and Brown, but every time they were on the ice it was an absolute firedrill in our own end. MacTavish recognizes this. You can't give the coach a bottom-six that hurts you every time you put them on the ice. Ideally, you want guys with size who can play two-way hockey, but if you have to choose between them, you choose the two-way player every time.

As for 2LW and 1D... I just don't see that out there in free agency anymore. I think getting that through trade is really the only option. And you might have to get creative to make that happen.

Defence by committee can be done. LA does it, for example. But your committee includes your big-minute centers, and guys like Mike Richards, Anze Kopitar, and Jarret Stoll as a group are on a different level from The Nooj, Sam Gagner, and Boyd Gordon.

I think the Oilers' TOP 6 is the group that needs to get tougher to play against (as well as tougher in general), and MacT's "we want Lucic" gaffe suggests that he agrees at least in part.

I agree with your assessment of the Flames defence, with the one caveat that pretty much every centre in the organization (ie Stajan, Backlund, Monaghan, Knight, Jankowski, Bouma, Arnold, etc) are all guys that are very good defensively. There is something to be said for having every centre on the team as a safe PK option.

Ramo's poor numbers in the NHL were from many years ago, when he was a teenager on the worst team in the NHL. He is a big gamble, but I don't think his stats from back then are any indicator one way or another about how he will perform this time around.

The Flames looked worse than they were for most of last season because Kipper was flat-out awful. IF Ramo can put up a solid performance I see the Flames back in a similar position next year, at 20-25th overall (worse team but with better goaltending). If not, 28th sounds right.

The Oilers on the other hand didn't seem to have any major outlier causing their woes. Their defence was as bad as it looked on paper, their young scoring forwards tried to play river hockey, and their goaltending was good but not amazing. None of these fundamentals have changed. Yes, if all or most of their key players have great years at the same time they will make the playoffs, but that is true of every team in the NHL.

the l.a kings do have a legitimate number one d man, drew doughty. i do agree though they play a sound defensive systm and are accountible, traits sorely lacking on the oilers. i only hope is that eatkins will change that, if he coachs the oilers the way he coached the marlies we may see sound defensive play and accountability for the first time in a long time. keep your fingers crossed guys.

Can I get a virtual high five for the work involved in setting up that pie chart OB? PIE CHARTS RULE!!!!

I expect better from you! Using the Oilers non existent playoff record on Smid's shoulders is really weak. How is that you so undervalue him compared to most of the hockey world? Is he a #1 guy, no probably not. But Solid defencemen with that kind of effort and ability are harder to come by then you figure. Blocking shots isnt always about luck, you still have to get in position to be lucky. Mind you a lions share he turns around and gets nailed with by accident, thepoint is he drags his bruised ass off the ice catches his breath and doesnt miss a shift. That kind of effort is what wins you cups. If it is surrounded by equally talented dmen, which hasnt really been the case for his tenure here so far.

Trade N Shultz if you have to, him being on his last year of a contract is valuable to cap heavy teams.

Am I the only one here confused that this guy thinks smid and poetry were the first d pairing last year? The Schultz's started every game with the top line that I watched. Mact needs to focus on finding a 1a dman to play with J.Schultz and leave that plug NM Schultz on the 3rd pairing where he belongs or traded for some help up front..